We are going to have to actually make a real investment in this team for once. That's about the long and short of it. Alexander-Arnold is the backup FB for next season - but we need another FB from the market (Moreno has played about 6 games all season). Sturridge is done - he needs to be replaced (how can anyone doubt this). Lucas is done at this level and Can is playing himself away - we need (have needed for years) a real DM, and another CM (again nothing new). Stewart is really not relevant I just mentioned him because he's not going to make it here anyway.
Well, we aint that far from 7th. We'll probably get a result from Arsenal. Unless we cease pissing away points at the rate we are, scrambling for 7th may be what we'll end up doing. I'm almightily pissed off with our team right now.
The point is things are incredibly tight at the top end of the table and we're close to both glory and failure - we somehow have to get out of our 2017 funk to claim the former. I'm not giving up hope we can do it, just being realistic here. Every time we march out and repeat the same shortcomings our chances ebb a bit more.
Right - we win a couple games on the trot, and the future will look much brighter... Now, if we could just figure out how to win a couple games on the trot...
and if we win that will be great of course but may not really help much. if Arse and Manure each win their game in hand then we are in 5th, 2 points behind Manure who are in good from now (compared to us). Arse GIH is - guess who - Leicester. Manure GIH is - guess who - Southampton. both games very winnable for Arse and MU.
So - our next three games are against Arsenal, Burnley and Man City...with two wins and a draw out of those three, we are right back in it!
Spoiler alert: If you want to feel good, do not read the rest of this post .... . . . . . . . Liverpool’s miserable record in 2017 would earn them only 15th place in a calendar-year table (unbeaten Everton would have a three-point lead at the top). https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...league-10-things-to-look-out-for-this-weekend
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...urgen-klopp-top-four-champions-league-arsenal Liverpool did not miss the opportunity this week to highlight the fact that their latest set of record-breaking accounts – in terms of their £301.8m revenue, not their £19.8 loss – came in a year when they were the only club in Deloitte’s top 10 rich list without Champions League football. As an illustration of Liverpool’s continued global and commercial appeal, it was a justifiable boast. As a reflection of Jürgen Klopp’s fortunes, it will mark an alarming deterioration should it reappear in the financial results for 2017-18. The prospect is growing. Klopp conceded the Premier League title had gone before Liverpool’s last home game against Tottenham Hotspur but not so “the holy grail” of Champions League qualification. That quest took another detour with the lamentable defeat on Monday at a suddenly re-energised Leicester City and will be in peril should Arsenal open up a four-point advantage over Liverpool, with a game in hand, by winning at Anfield on Saturday. Arsène Wenger’s team will have to show rare big-game character to shatter Liverpool’s unbeaten record against fellow top‑six clubs this season. And even that impressive return cannot comfort Klopp as it should, when his side’s failures against the lesser lights are becoming routine. The Liverpool manager invited ridicule before the Spurs game by revealing he dreamt of ending his first full season in English football with 14 consecutive league wins. “And I know how that sounds,” he said after one win in 10 matches but before a comprehensive 2-0 victory that gave some credence to those dreams. What he would never say is that his players must share responsibility for a potential title challenge fading into a desperate fight for a top-four finish within 10 weeks. The thought, and perhaps the conclusion, will not have escaped him despite his decision to deploy Lucas Leiva in a high defensive line against Jamie Vardy contributing to the 3-1 defeat at the King Power Stadium. “If people want to know why I kept Lucas Leiva in the centre-half position it is because he played really well there in the previous game against Tottenham,” Klopp said on Friday. “Against Leicester he was not so good, but he was not alone.” The predictable cycle of Liverpool’s results and performances in 2017 will have consequences for more than simply Daniel Sturridge should Klopp find himself this summer back at square one and needing to rejuvenate without the lure of Champions League football. Sturridge’s future, the manager has confirmed, will be reviewed at the end of the campaign, as would be expected of a highly paid, high-profile England international who has started only five Premier League matches this season and is unavailable on Saturday after picking up a “small strain” in training. The review will go much further and range from transfer inactivity in January to tactics, squad depth and mentality if the only reward for a season of such promise is Europa League qualification. It would be no surprise were Liverpool to rouse themselves against Arsenal but what resembled an inviting run-in when Klopp’s team swarmed to the Premier League summit in the autumn will now bring misgivings. All five of Liverpool’s league defeats have come against teams in the bottom half of the table – four of the five opponents were in the relegation zone at the start of the match day – and six of their remaining 12 matches are against sides in the wrong half of the division. The fixture list provides an opportunity to eradicate mistakes. So far this year, Liverpool have merely repeated them. It feels a far cry from the 4-3 opening-day win at Arsenal. “We were full of confidence then and I was more optimistic,” Klopp said. “I am not a clown, even if people think I am. How can I be in the same mood that I was at the start of the season?” Klopp said earlier in the campaign that he had no respect for critics of Liverpool’s defending but one or two of them must have been correct. No team in the top eight have conceded more goals than Liverpool’s 33. Klopp and his players, despite confronting the same tactics time and again, have found no solution against opponents with a deep-lying defence and rapid counterattack, other than against Tottenham. Six defeats in 12 matches since the turn of the year have done nothing to dispel the notion of a team being found out. The manager’s denial of an attitude problem was also undermined by Liverpool’s lethargic start against a Leicester side with an obvious point to prove after the dismissal of Claudio Ranieri. Jamie Carragher said in the Sky studio last Monday that he was more concerned about Liverpool being overtaken by Everton than missing out on a top-four finish. It was more a reflection of his former club’s slide than a parochial dig, with their Merseyside rivals closing the gap from 14 to five points since losing the derby to Sadio Mané’s late winner on 19 December. Liverpool were second after that impressive show of character at Goodison Park. Of all the explanations Klopp has offered for their form since – the demands of the festive schedule (on a team without European football), an offside goal at Old Trafford and cup eliminations that have darkened perceptions of an already damaging run – the impact on morale of Chelsea disappearing from view in the Premier League carries the greatest weight. He will face another summer of trying to entice top targets without Champions League football should Liverpool allow it to affect them any longer.
Not sure how you can be sarcastic with this team. If they don't beat Brunley we will have undone everything from this victory - much like the Tottenham to Leicester swing. This team this calendar year hasn't shown a modicum of consistency - it's not 2 games or 5 - it's 10+.
Liverpool have scored 19 goals in the first 30 minutes of games this season, five more than any other club, according to the stats wizards at Opta.
Could be a clear game plan to go full throttle the first 30 minutes and score. Then shift down 2 gears and run the clock down. Tuchel used to do this at Mainz
Is it a case of chicken and egg? Maybe we do score first in those games because everything is clicking?
We just seem unable effectively to transition from attacking to defending when we lose the ball in full attack mode. Vardy's first goal came about when Wijnaldum lost the ball; one pass and Leicester had scored. My main gripe is the defending of set-pieces which is so one-dimensional-- often two or three Liverpool go for the same ball, clatter into each other leaving nobody to pick up the second ball-- watch Drinkwater's strike. And going back a few games, Hull scored both after Liverpool's attack had broken own downfield. It's no wonder that Arsene thought he could come to Anfield and try some of that.
This should probably go on the Burnley game thread once it's up ... Jurgen Klopp has admitted Liverpool lack quality and that Burnley will beat them again on Sunday unless he creates the right mood and confidence among his players. Liverpool lost 2-0 at Burnley on 20 August, in one of their poorest displays this season. On Saturday they beat Arsenal 3-1 but this came after a 3-1 defeat at Leicester City in the previous match. Although defeating Arsenal lifted Liverpool back into a Champions League berth, two points clear of Arsène Wenger’s fifth-placed side, Klopp is concerned about inconsistency. Whereas Liverpool have taken 19 points from a possible 27 against other top-six teams they have struggled against those in lower positions, as the defeats by Burnley and Leicester indicate. Liverpool also lost at Bournemouth, drew at Sunderland and were beaten by Swansea City at Anfield. Asked about this, Klopp pointed to a lack of quality. “I don’t want to make it too philosophical – it is obviously the case we are inconsistent. I know we don’t have to doubt the attitude, and the kind of attitude we usually are looking for was here against Arsenal; they were really motivated and you cannot play like this if you have any issues. But we struggled in other games. So, OK, you say it is about quality and sometimes probably, yeah, we don’t have the quality. But with quality you have potential, and you make quality with work and all that stuff. “If we judge the players after the best game of the season, then we sign a contract for another six seasons; if we do it after Leicester then you change the whole squad. But the truth is always in between. That is what we are working on, really working on. There will be moments when we play like this [against Arsenal] and win again – and it is what we did this season already, in fact – and it will be against a team not in the top six. But we have to work on it, first of all we have to feel like it is possible.” The manner of the loss to Sean Dyche’s side in August is a concern as Liverpool were overrun in midfield and were susceptible to the counterattack. Klopp is intent on building his players’ confidence to avoid a second, disappointing reverse. He said: “The whole week [coming] is different. When the week starts after Leicester everybody was angry, then we produce this performance against Arsenal. But then the question is immediately about Burnley and it starts already: ‘Oh, how can we do this?’ The legs feel already very heavy for the next game. My job is to produce the right mood, and I feel especially responsible after not so good performances, [so] we work on it.” Klopp is candid that disappointing results affect his players’ spirits more than positive ones. He cited the 1-0 victory over Manchester City on New Year’s Eve and the draw at Sunderland three days later. “We played Man City – they are really strong, we won 1-0. If this victory had given us as much confidence as the draw at Sunderland had given us a knock, then everything would be fine. But it was not like this. Man City was: ‘We can do it sometimes’; Sunderland was: ‘Yeah, that is the usual face.’ So we have to keep on going in these parts and then, finally, probably everything will be good. I don’t like inconsistency, I made it pretty clear, but at the end, until now, it was part of the deal, obviously. “The important thing in a development is that you take the information you get, work with it. Most of the info, you don’t like … We are all a little bit like this: we let the bad things influence us more than the good things, otherwise we would celebrate our birthday maybe longer than one day.” Despite his concerns, Klopp is sure of unity. “Especially in this moment, the club is completely together. Everybody expects we already should be somewhere else [higher]. I understand this, it is our aim, it is where we want to be. We are completely fine, the owners are fine, they are completely with us, the players – we have a wonderful relationship. But that doesn’t mean we say every day what they want to hear. It means we work on the things we are not as good as [we should be].”
"You haven't lived till you've had a beer with Jurgen Klopp" .... http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04yrg3x
Mainz are in relegation battle. So a few ultras went to Liverpool and collected a motivational speech for the club, city, fans and team. Even without subs, makes you wanna run through a wall for this guy
Could Philippe Coutinho be set for a new Liverpool role? Jurgen Klopp on why No.8 suits the Reds star http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/spor...en-klopp-philippe-coutinho-liverpool-13027453
That would be great to see. Lallana adjusted brilliantly to a central midfield role, and if Phil could do the same, our attack could be deadly. This may also mean that Klopp will prioritize signing players to play in the front 3 if he sees Phil playing in behind them.
Or maybe just a change in formation? 4-2-3-1 4-4-2 diamond would both accommodate the proposed new role for Coutinho?